The Politics of Foster Care Administration in the United States by Rebecca Padot

Author:Rebecca Padot [Padot, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Public Affairs & Administration, Social Services & Welfare, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781317693406
Google: CBjEBAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 23370197
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

The Courts

If the Rhode Island legislature is apathetic about foster care, the state’s court system is virtually incapable of acting on behalf of foster care children. A prime example of the court’s administrative chaos concerned the court’s response to my interview requests. The court contact stated that telephone calls would be returned and they repeatedly were not. Then the court contact would phone and apologize, but not fulfill the next agreed-to obligation. This mismanagement of interview requests by e-mail and telephone transpired over several months, and easily was the worst interview request process I experienced out of more than 50 interview requests. This process confirmed the statements made by Rhode Island’s key players regarding the mismanagement of the courts.

First, the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program at the Rhode Island Family Court is overwhelmed. Although the program is staffed by government employees and supported by volunteers that they recruit, the foster children do not have appropriate representation. The executive director of the Foster Parents Association said, “A CASA attorney may have 300 kids on a caseload. They couldn’t pick my CASA child out of a line-up.”44

Second, the court’s processes related to foster care issues are complex, and by comparison to other case states, very inefficient. In Rhode Island, the same foster care case can be dragged through many different courts. For instance, DCYF senior casework supervisor Philip Steiner stated, “There’s a huge amount of court involvement—mental health court, truancy court, drug court—so you’ll be three or four days on the same case. There’s a special court for everything instead of [a system that’s] all-encompassing.”45

Another problematic issue that child welfare advocates have identified is a lack of accountability on the part of the courts. Both Steiner and the chief casework supervisor believe that the courts should be opened up to the public so the courts can be held accountable.46 Robbins stated, “We need to open up the cases to hold the judges accountable. Child deaths are sometimes the court’s fault. Judges order certain kids into certain foster care placements over the heads of the agency.”47 The chief judge of the family court is referred to as “Judge Jeremiah for life” because judges are appointed for life and don’t have to answer to anybody.48

Finally, interbranch conflict over the control of foster care policy further undermines any progress in this area generally, and the well-being of specific children in particular. In Delaware, the judicial and executive branches are in natural tension and work in tandem to determine the best action plan for the foster child. In Rhode Island, the courts and the agency work against each other by wrestling over control of case outcomes. According to the Rhode Island DCYF policy officer in central management, there is a “lot of animosity between the family courts and the state. There is a fight going on.”49 When I asked Dana Mullen, the permanency program manager for Children’s Friend and Service about the relationship between the family court and the state, she said, “or the lack…

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